Darkness Turns to Light (Arashi)
Title: darkness turns to light
Pairing: Ohno x Nino
Rating: R
Summary: First Arashi fic in nearly a year. Does Nino deserve pity for his family life? Or is he just using it as an excuse for his own actions?
This will be the last time, Nino thinks, as he produces a worn pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket. They're Malboro Lights. He thinks it's amusing that they even consider calling any cigarette light; the word doesn't fit. The cigarette feels just the same as any other, between his fingertips, and the smoke that cakes his lungs and filters out through his nose, it's just as heavy as it usually is.
There is a vague part of him which wonders, is there a light version of everything?
The cake he ate back at that restaurant wasn't light; it was rich, filled with chocolate cremes and a warm drizzel of caramel over the top to make it even sweeter. He thinks that a light version of such wouldn't taste as deliciously sinful. He thinks there wouldn't be a point to it at all.
Or why don't they make a light version of sex? A game plan previously devised to get a lover in and out with enough time to spare to have a piece of that cake afterwards. Or to burn up a supposedly light cigarette.
And for that matter, why don't they make a light version of love--Nino laughs, because it's such a stupid idea, really, because his lungs weren't burning entirely from the tobacco, and his mouth wasn't dry entirely from the stick of it. Because his hands didn't tremble because of a piece of cake, his knees didn't quiver because a box of cigarettes looked at him the right way.
He always waits for Ohno in this way.
Inside, he can hear the screaming of his parents. There's the caustic squeal of chair legs against a tile floor, the classic rrrip of the curtains as his mother pulls on them. The sound of the bass flooding through the roof of the deck as his sister cranks up her stereo system. His father's voice blasting past the sliding glass door, where the glass is already cracked, a so-called accident from the last incident, and he can hear his mother weeping, and her sobs echo in his ears. They are like a swirl of dirty bath water circling around a drain, spinning, gushing, and annoyed, Nino pulls a bit of hair down over his ear. The ash of the cigarette drips, staining the skin of his hand a soft, gray color that disappears with one aimed breath.
He always waits impatiently for Ohno this way.
And why don't they make a light version of love, he wonders again, and this time the thought seems less silly to him. Maybe if love wasn't so serious, maybe if it didn't hurt, didn't pull at strings that no human acknowledges, didn't torture and ridicule and bend normal thoughts to succumb to its partiality, maybe then his father wouldn't be so hard on his mother. Maybe he wouldn't hit her like that. Maybe Nino wouldn't have to shoulder the burden.
Maybe he could try to believe in it. Maybe he could give it a chance, because the feelings, they're locked inside his chest. A tiny little cage that only he knows about, because it's one of those secrets, the secrets that you can't tell anyone, the secrets that make you who you are, somewhere, anywhere, one of those ones that will ruin a person once let out. And standing there, at the back door, waiting for the lock on the fence to open and the wooden door to swing wide, he knows he can't afford to be any more ruined than he already is.
Nino thinks that he is probably just using Ohno. In fact, the word probably is a little too blaise, he is using Ohno, it's just a pain to admit it. Because in admitting it, he'd have to admit to having a conscience. And in admitting to that, he'd probably have to stop doing what he was doing in the first place.
The nights they spend are short, succinct, because any longer and Ohno wouldn't leave in the morning. They wouldn't shy away from each other in the damp, murky atmosphere of Nino's bedroom, they wouldn't insist on going to work at separate times and they certainly wouldn't continue to subject themselves to a game that they both have already lost. If sex was as light as the cigarette burning itself out in his touch, crumbling beneath it would be so much easier.
But it's not easy. Because when Ohno looks at Nino with those eyes--the eyes that fill a void in him, that see something in him, something beyond the insults his father screams at him, something beyond the pitiful way his mother stares at him, he can feel the tears welling up. They aren't light tears; they are tears that are soaked with an unbelievable need to feel wanted. They are tears that burn down his cheeks like acid, that leave paths of red against his skin, which trembles when Ohno touches it, because he's weak, yes, that must be it.
Nino is weak.
He uses Ohno because Ohno lets him, and he doesn't know how to do anything else. In love, he is a fraud, one who watches and uses the tricks of others just to get someone into bed. For him, there is nothing more. And he is afraid that by now, he is too jaded to ever have it be more.
But this will be the last time, Nino thinks, and his eyes train up to the sky as the sound of Ohno's voice calls timidly from beyond the fence.
Pairing: Ohno x Nino
Rating: R
Summary: First Arashi fic in nearly a year. Does Nino deserve pity for his family life? Or is he just using it as an excuse for his own actions?
This will be the last time, Nino thinks, as he produces a worn pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket. They're Malboro Lights. He thinks it's amusing that they even consider calling any cigarette light; the word doesn't fit. The cigarette feels just the same as any other, between his fingertips, and the smoke that cakes his lungs and filters out through his nose, it's just as heavy as it usually is.
There is a vague part of him which wonders, is there a light version of everything?
The cake he ate back at that restaurant wasn't light; it was rich, filled with chocolate cremes and a warm drizzel of caramel over the top to make it even sweeter. He thinks that a light version of such wouldn't taste as deliciously sinful. He thinks there wouldn't be a point to it at all.
Or why don't they make a light version of sex? A game plan previously devised to get a lover in and out with enough time to spare to have a piece of that cake afterwards. Or to burn up a supposedly light cigarette.
And for that matter, why don't they make a light version of love--Nino laughs, because it's such a stupid idea, really, because his lungs weren't burning entirely from the tobacco, and his mouth wasn't dry entirely from the stick of it. Because his hands didn't tremble because of a piece of cake, his knees didn't quiver because a box of cigarettes looked at him the right way.
He always waits for Ohno in this way.
Inside, he can hear the screaming of his parents. There's the caustic squeal of chair legs against a tile floor, the classic rrrip of the curtains as his mother pulls on them. The sound of the bass flooding through the roof of the deck as his sister cranks up her stereo system. His father's voice blasting past the sliding glass door, where the glass is already cracked, a so-called accident from the last incident, and he can hear his mother weeping, and her sobs echo in his ears. They are like a swirl of dirty bath water circling around a drain, spinning, gushing, and annoyed, Nino pulls a bit of hair down over his ear. The ash of the cigarette drips, staining the skin of his hand a soft, gray color that disappears with one aimed breath.
He always waits impatiently for Ohno this way.
And why don't they make a light version of love, he wonders again, and this time the thought seems less silly to him. Maybe if love wasn't so serious, maybe if it didn't hurt, didn't pull at strings that no human acknowledges, didn't torture and ridicule and bend normal thoughts to succumb to its partiality, maybe then his father wouldn't be so hard on his mother. Maybe he wouldn't hit her like that. Maybe Nino wouldn't have to shoulder the burden.
Maybe he could try to believe in it. Maybe he could give it a chance, because the feelings, they're locked inside his chest. A tiny little cage that only he knows about, because it's one of those secrets, the secrets that you can't tell anyone, the secrets that make you who you are, somewhere, anywhere, one of those ones that will ruin a person once let out. And standing there, at the back door, waiting for the lock on the fence to open and the wooden door to swing wide, he knows he can't afford to be any more ruined than he already is.
Nino thinks that he is probably just using Ohno. In fact, the word probably is a little too blaise, he is using Ohno, it's just a pain to admit it. Because in admitting it, he'd have to admit to having a conscience. And in admitting to that, he'd probably have to stop doing what he was doing in the first place.
The nights they spend are short, succinct, because any longer and Ohno wouldn't leave in the morning. They wouldn't shy away from each other in the damp, murky atmosphere of Nino's bedroom, they wouldn't insist on going to work at separate times and they certainly wouldn't continue to subject themselves to a game that they both have already lost. If sex was as light as the cigarette burning itself out in his touch, crumbling beneath it would be so much easier.
But it's not easy. Because when Ohno looks at Nino with those eyes--the eyes that fill a void in him, that see something in him, something beyond the insults his father screams at him, something beyond the pitiful way his mother stares at him, he can feel the tears welling up. They aren't light tears; they are tears that are soaked with an unbelievable need to feel wanted. They are tears that burn down his cheeks like acid, that leave paths of red against his skin, which trembles when Ohno touches it, because he's weak, yes, that must be it.
Nino is weak.
He uses Ohno because Ohno lets him, and he doesn't know how to do anything else. In love, he is a fraud, one who watches and uses the tricks of others just to get someone into bed. For him, there is nothing more. And he is afraid that by now, he is too jaded to ever have it be more.
But this will be the last time, Nino thinks, and his eyes train up to the sky as the sound of Ohno's voice calls timidly from beyond the fence.